Free Wynne's War by Aaron Gwyn

said Wheels. “There’s a bunch of them. Four-by-fives. Doesn’t look like they’ve even been used.”
    â€œLet’s start dragging them out,” Russell said.
    Wheels looked over toward the stable.
    â€œWhat,” he said, “—you want to build a round corral?”
    â€œRound corral,” Russell said.
    They spent the remaining daylight dragging the galvanized panels from the stable and leaning them against the wooden pen. Each of the panels weighed about fifteen pounds and were bound to each other by paracord in bundles of eight. At first they cut the cord and carried them out by twos, but then Wheels began to hug entire bundles and lug them out, and Russell followed suit. When they had all of them outside, they cut the cords and separated the panels and then began to link them to one another, lining up the connector tubes and dropping in the foot-long pin, moving to the next section and then the next. By dark, they’d connected three-quarters of the panels and had built a round corral next to the split-rail pen, about fifty meters in diameter. They stood there surveying their work and then they went down to the mess tent for supper.
    Â 
    He was up again before dawn, in the tack room sorting through leads and ropes—stirrups, bits, and bridles—negotiating the dark of the stable with a small flashlight between his teeth. He threw a saddle over his shoulder, picked up the stack of blankets and ropes, carried the equipment out to the round corral, and stacked it to one side. Then he went for Fella.
    When Wheels came over to the corral half an hour later, Russell already had the filly tethered to the lead and was back to twirling the rope. The filly still turned counterclockwise, but she no longer quivered at the rope’s touch and Russell had taken the fear out of her eyes. Wheels stood quietly, sipping his coffee, watching his friend move the horse several turns and then pet her, move the horse and pet her. He continued this until he’d swing the rope to brush her flank and she’d just stand there, blinking. Russell dropped the lead and began rubbing her all over, and when he took up the lead again, he’d changed directions and begun to work the other side, turning the horse to the right, clockwise this time, the horse fidgety again, as startled by the rope as though she’d never felt it.
    By the time the sun had crested the eastern ridges, Russell had the filly where the twirling rope would only move her, never make her quiver or flinch. He rubbed her down again and spoke to her, and when he turned he saw one of the Green Berets from Wynne’s team standing beside Wheels at the edge of the corral. He nodded to the man and the man nodded back, and then Russell looked over at Wheels.
    â€œI need something red,” he told him. “I need a stick about yay long.” He held his palm a little higher than his head to indicate the length.
    â€œRed?” said Wheels.
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œThat’ll likely be a problem,” Wheels told him, but the man standing there spoke up.
    â€œCan it be fabric?” he asked.
    â€œIt can be pretty much anything,” Russell said.
    â€œI have a red shirt,” the man told him, his lips curling toward the left side of his face. He had a long brown beard like Billings, and like Billings his hair touched the collar of his jacket and he wore a ball cap to keep his bangs out of his eyes.
    â€œYou wouldn’t mind me cutting it up?” asked Russell.
    The man shook his head. “Give me a minute and I’ll grab it.”
    Russell unsnapped the lead from the horse’s halter, brushed his hand along her jaw, and then walked over and climbed up and over one of the corral panels. He headed down to a small grove of willows that grew beside the creek on the north end of camp, selected a long limb about half an inch in diameter, removed his knife from his pocket, thumbed it open, and cut